Tinubu Reacts As U.S Releases Certified True Copies Of Drug Dealings

The documents which went viral on Tuesday evening, revealed details on Tinubu’s alleged indictment in drug deals and receipt of illegal money while in the U.S.

The 56-page document released showed the long-held view that Tinubu faced conviction on narcotics charges in the US especially with the revelation that he forfeited up to $460,000 to the U.S. authorities in 1993

However, reacting to the issue in a chat with reporters on Tuesday night, the Director of Media and Publicity of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, denied the reports that his principal was involved in drug dealings and money laundering.

Onanuga asserted that the story which first surfaced before the APC presidential election is fake and blamed the media for recycling such propaganda.

He said: “One of the unconscionable and wicked lies peddled by political opponents about Bola Ahmed Tinubu was to paint him erroneously as a drug baron.

“The accusation arose out of an investigation by FBI agent Kevin Moss of Tinubu and Compass Investment and Finance accounts at First Heritage Bank and Citi- Bank in the U.S.

“On January 10, 1992, Mr Kevin Moss requested and obtained a court order to freeze the accounts. On January 13, 1992, Mr Moss telephoned Tinubu in Nigeria to justify the amounts in the accounts, running into $1.4 million. Part of the money was said to have been deposited by two Nigerians, being investigated for drug offences.

“After the telephone conversation, Tinubu instructed his lawyer in the US to file a lawsuit against the order freezing his accounts.

“This dragged on till 15 September 1993, when an agreement was reached for an out-of-court settlement. Judge John A Nordberg, of the US district court for the Northern District of Illinois, read out the agreement reached by the two parties. Part of the funds, $460,000 was seized by the government.

“The FBI never charged Tinubu with any drug offence; the case did not go on trial. Tinubu was never convicted. And he was never barred from entering the United States.

“In 2003, ten years after, when the PDP opponents wanted to use the shuttered allegation to disqualify Tinubu from running for a second term in Lagos, the Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun made an enquiry with the American Consulate on Tinubu’s status.”

The statement further added, “Almost thirty years after the allegation was discharged and the case declared dead, Tinubu’s opponents keep waking up its corpse, in futile efforts to malign him.”